REID #48

Aug 31, 2021

SHORT:

Well it happened. My gay senior citizen pen pal didn’t pick up the phone again at our allotted time and I thought he was dead but turns out he was pouring himself a glass of wine because he bought his first home at 75.

The home is 100 miles out of the city, and I’m happy for him but also devastated because it means he can’t do his senior citizen improv/acting class anymore and I really think he has a bright future in the biz (I have never met him in person).

Oh well.

Some people choose comfort and quiet over fame and I respect the hell out of it.

He wants to have coffee with me before he leaves. Well … me and my girlfriend. At first it was just me, but then last week he said, “and invite ur gf too why don’t ya”. So we’re setting that up.

Last week he was talking about a homophobic lady he was mad at and he said, “her tits are gonna look like they’ve gone through the ringer after I’m done with her!” And I was like, “I don’t believe I’ve heard that expression before” and he said “yeah, that’s because I just made it up!”

Anyway, I love him, and next time he doesn’t pick up I won’t freak out. I’ll just assume he’s buying another house or at an “Italian dinner that ran long” ← which happens more often than you would think!

#TBT to when he chronically could NOT stop going to Little Italy during the height of the pandemic because he “needed his spaghetti”

MEDIUM:

Yesterday I threw a fake Bar Mitzvah for a kid named Jeffrey Epstein (no relation).

My friend Zach and I went to Orthodox Williamsburg to try and get challah for the event and they looked at us and were like, “it is literally Sunday, the day after Shabbos, so clearly we are OUT” (Doy!)

Then we went to go buy yamakas in bulk and they said “we do not do that, we only have very nice velvet ones that you buy 1 by 1 and they are very expensive because it’s an investment” (Doy! pt. II).

Honestly, we are so dumb. Take away our Jew cards.

(But then give them back, because we need them to have a personality.

Also, Zach made Salmon in the middle of the day yesterday “just because” so that has to count for something, right? Nothing Jewey-er than preparing Salmon-for-1 at Noon IMO.)

When we were in O.W. Zach and I kept visualizing some of the people as Reform Jewish women in LuluLemons, running around Chicago. The spectrum of Judaism is so stunning! Move over, sexuality spectrum (jk)! We’re all so different, and yet, at the end of the day, we’re all connected by trauma and matzah.

The fake Bar Mitzvah Comedy show happened at Brooklyn Comedy Collective (BCC) so we called the synagogue Beit Challah Challah (BCC) but I reallyyyy made myself laugh coming up with some other options:

Congregation Beit Jenji Kohan

Congregation Beth Andy Cohen

Congregation Beth WhoDiedInLittleWomen

Congregation Beit HaHaHa

If you’re not Jewish and you read this newsletter, I’m so sorry about this section. This one’s really for the Jews. But as we said last night, we suffered for you to NOT UNDERSTAND (6 million etc. etc.)

LONG:

Tomorrow I am going by myself to see Sandra Bernhard Live! with every other person who knows what’s up and what’s right. Every TikTok lesbian should attend this damn show. To honor their history. Alas, gay culture is ageist.

I read the big New Yorker article about the showrunner of Succession where he was like “this is a reference to Gilgamesh and this is a reference to this historical thing and I read 90 books a day and am really cool as a person and fun to work with” and I freaked out about being dumb and announced to everyone I knew that I was “quitting the industry” that I haven’t even rly worked professionally in yet :)

After a while, I calmed down and decided to name one of my characters in my comedy pilot “Shakespeare” so when I get interviewed for The New Yorker, I can be like “now, u might not have caught it, but that’s actually a reference to William Shakespeare.”

Someone put the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg over Brooklyn so everyone in this dam town can finally be seen and calm down!

(By everyone I mostly mean me)

Speaking of me, I went to the eye doctor. Congratulations to everyone who begged me to go (my parents, my girlfriend, my therapist).

I woke up at 7am and trudged down the street to the train. I got off at Wall Street and everyone was in a nice suit except for me (I was in a giant blue t-shirt – it’s big t-shirt summer!) I was 20 minutes early, so I went to a cafe and slurped Matcha as the barista cranked up the volume on that song that goes: “My Heart’s A Stereo”.

They dilated my eyes and, surprise surprise, prescribed me glasses BUT the eye doctor said that my “incidents” (shoutout to last newsletter– for those who didn’t read it, I’ve been dizzy, vertigo, pukey, die-y at random a lot) are most likely caused by something “a lot bigger than my eyes” so I should “definitely go see a regular doctor”.

I will. But I just hate going to any of these places because I sign up as “Reid” and then they see my ID and are like “THAT is your NAME?” and I’m like “well yeah so here’s the thing I didn’t legally change my name because I’m lazy first, trans second but if you see by that little X on my card that’s clearly not … something you’ve ever seen before… so maybe let’s just go along with what’s happening… but and also btw if ur a health professional you might of heard of what I am and that happens to be something called non-binary but actually please don’t say much about it if you know what it is because it’s humiliating when people make a big deal but also please for the love of god don’t call me ma’am” and then they’re like “ok ma’am”

and you’re like…

ok ya so this is why I just writhe in pain in my apartment and walk around NY with blurry eyes. Because I can’t deal with having to circle F or M on your forms and I’m not about to carrot mark / “write in” NB because then what if you’re like “what’s this?” and then I have to explain my ABSTRACT IDENTITY and then that makes me feel like I’M MAKING SHIT UP when I promise to GOD I’m not because I literally would rather do ANYTHING (eat worms, watch a Lord Of The Rings Film, kiss my 7th grade bf) than have to talk about my existence (sure, I do it here, but… this is different).

Anyway, the point is I do need glasses and they prescribed me some and then I wandered the streets of the financial district with my eyes dilated and squinty, trying to find the train home.

When I arrived back at my apartment, I opened my computer and my hard drive immediately crashed and my computer would not turn back on. I went to the Downtown Brooklyn Apple store and had the whole “your ID doesn’t match your appointment name” thing happen again.

As I stood outside the store waiting for my 5th device of the month to be fixed, deep throating a Whole Foods egg salad sandwich and holding a ready-to-be-devoured mochi in the other, I was like– well, this is my “new normal” and honey? I’M NOT ADJUSTING WELL!

Later that night, I went to get Bubble Tea and they were out of the boba and could only give me the tea part and I was like “it’s really good and fun that we have to keep going and doing this thing called life!!”

The Bubble Tea lady was like “yeah I know ok have a nice day”.